Comment Apple Hardware -- Apple Software (Score 3, Interesting) 440
Apple will undoubtedly choose to go with whichever processor will provide their users with the best balance of price/performance. The fact that they have stuck with PPC for so long is merely a coincidence.
Much like SGI using MIPS processors (although they did end up buying the company), and their official stance being whatever provides the best performance (be it Intel, MIPS, Sparc, PPC) is what they will in turn use.
OS X being direct descendant of OpenStep/NextStep, is a very portable OS (If you will recall it ran on x86, PPC, and Sparc Hardware). The only reason that I can argue that Apple has not gone to x86 compatible hardware up to this point is Microsoft's influence. Microsoft will not continue with Office for the Mac if it is going to lead to people choosing the Mac OS over Windows.
There is already some talk about Microsoft dropping Office for the Mac because of "low sales figures", which is fine by me as I tend to use OppenOffice.org anyway. Frankly as soon as Sun realizes the market for OpenOffice.org on MacOS, they will start marketing it under the StarOffice name and provide support, all at a price that Microsoft can not even begin to compete with.
If Apple does choose to go to an "x86" processor, it would be more than likely an offering from AMD (in the form of a Hammer) than Intel. Any thought of the Itanium processor is merely wishful thinking on the part of Intel (remember these things cost nearly $3000 per processor, and Apple has joined the SMP revolution).
If you were to see OS X on "Intel" hardware, I would expect that you would see it in a strange combination of technologies. For example, you would likely see is special PCI card which would be the boot media (Kernel in Flash) with special system identifiers in ROM, to insure that is is a Apple authorized installation. This would be the configuration of the "Clones". The "real" Apple hardware would have these components integrated into the mainboard. The real Apple hardware would not support booting Windows (much the same as you can not boot AIX on a Mac (except for the ANS) even though it is a compatible platform on which to do so. Obvious omissions from the firmware are noted.).
Much like SGI using MIPS processors (although they did end up buying the company), and their official stance being whatever provides the best performance (be it Intel, MIPS, Sparc, PPC) is what they will in turn use.
OS X being direct descendant of OpenStep/NextStep, is a very portable OS (If you will recall it ran on x86, PPC, and Sparc Hardware). The only reason that I can argue that Apple has not gone to x86 compatible hardware up to this point is Microsoft's influence. Microsoft will not continue with Office for the Mac if it is going to lead to people choosing the Mac OS over Windows.
There is already some talk about Microsoft dropping Office for the Mac because of "low sales figures", which is fine by me as I tend to use OppenOffice.org anyway. Frankly as soon as Sun realizes the market for OpenOffice.org on MacOS, they will start marketing it under the StarOffice name and provide support, all at a price that Microsoft can not even begin to compete with.
If Apple does choose to go to an "x86" processor, it would be more than likely an offering from AMD (in the form of a Hammer) than Intel. Any thought of the Itanium processor is merely wishful thinking on the part of Intel (remember these things cost nearly $3000 per processor, and Apple has joined the SMP revolution).
If you were to see OS X on "Intel" hardware, I would expect that you would see it in a strange combination of technologies. For example, you would likely see is special PCI card which would be the boot media (Kernel in Flash) with special system identifiers in ROM, to insure that is is a Apple authorized installation. This would be the configuration of the "Clones". The "real" Apple hardware would have these components integrated into the mainboard. The real Apple hardware would not support booting Windows (much the same as you can not boot AIX on a Mac (except for the ANS) even though it is a compatible platform on which to do so. Obvious omissions from the firmware are noted.).
